> > ["Shaksper" is the Stratford businessman/London actor. So is "Stratford Willy" - I'm not convinced
> > that the spelling of his surname matters that much.
> > "de Vere" is Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford.
> > "Shakespeare" is the playwright, whoever he was.]

> > > he travelled extensively
> >
> > Did Stratford Willy not?
>
> considering his position in life at the time, probably not

But, again, we don't know for sure.


> > > and had connections with the English court,
> >
> > Did Stratford Willy not?
>
> again, probably not

Weren't some of the plays written for the court?

Whoops. Silly me. Circular reasoning. Sorry.


> > > as well as 2 master's degrees and background in law.
> >
> > Why is a background in law important?
>
> hm, i'm not sure.... maybe it isn't

Something I found when I was glancing through _The Shakespeare Conspiracy_:

"In 1859 Lord Chief Justice Campbell was asked if he thought the legal references in the plays meant that Shakespeare had at one time been a laywer. In reply, Campbell stated that the legal knowledge was evident, but no more than should be expected from someone who had spent time 'in the office of a county attorney in good business'. The Shakespeare of Stratford could certainly have acquired such knowledge. One of the few facts known about the Stratford Shakespeare is his involvement in numerous legal matters. In fact, a considerable knowledge of legal terminology and court proceedings could have been gained by almost anyone; at a time when entertainment was sparse, the law courts drew large crowds of spectators.
"[...] In 1913 J.M. Robertson's _The Baconian Heresy_ was published. Robertson spent five years in a lawyer's office, in his spare time, comparing Shakespeare with other contemporary playwrights, searching for legal references. He was able to demonstrate that the playwrights Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, and Philip Massinger often used precisely the same legal phraseology as Shakespeare, and that Ben Jonson used much more. As these playwrights had no formal legal training, the argument that the author (whoever it was) of the Shakespeare plays *must* be a trained lawyer was invalidated.
"A strong case *against* the plays being written by an important lawyer was made by barrister W.C. Devecmon (_Re Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements_), when he criticised the trial scene from _The Merchant of Venice_ as good theatre but legal nonsense. He contrasted this with John Webster's realistic handling of trial scenes in three of his plays. Moreover, Devecmon stressed that Webster employed 'more legal expression, some of them highly technical, and all correctly used, than any single one of Shakespeare's works'."

> The whole Bible issue is what i think really nails down de Vere's claim.... a lot of the other
> stuff can be written off as coincidental and dubious.... but what do you do with THIS?

Yes, it is interesting, isn't it?

> uni"i'm a bit less sure now..."peg

So'm I.

Pa"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"ul